Mass effect: Ship's baker
by Jerricom
Summary: John Shepard's baking a cake, and Ashley is recruited for the cause.


**Mass Effect: Ship's baker**

It's the early hours of the morning, according to ship's clock at least. The SR1 Normandy has just departed the Citadel, bound for Noveria to finally track down Saren's right-hand woman, Benezia. The engine's humm echoes gently throughout the small frigate, the decks are alive with a barely noticeable vibration that comes and goes in rhythm with the humming.

Ashley is on the early shift for vital systems security, but first she needs to grab breakfast so she's heading to the galley. She does a round of the ship before going, just to make sure all's well. Indeed, all's normal on the Normandy... exempt for one thing. When the black-haired gunnery chief makes it to the galley it isn't the ship's chef whom she finds hard at work, but none other than Commander John Shepard himself. Casual uniform, the chef's apron and gloves and a grin on his face. Ashley doesn't quite know what to make of the sight, so she just mumbles "Uh... Shepard? What are you doing?"

The man looks up and at Ashley, "Ah, you're up, good! I was just waiting for you. Would you like to come over and help?"

Ashley blinks, "B-but commander, what are you..?" She glances past Shepard and down at the counter he's working by, and notices the bowl filled with batter he's stirring. Slowly she realizes, "Ohh... Are you-? For..?"

"The chef, yeah," Shepard affirms and hitches a thumb over his shoulder, "Let 'im sleep in the morning, so I could take the opportunity to bake something for his birthday."

Ashley almost feels like laughing, partially because how surprised she is, "I had no idea you had even a passing interest in baking, Shepard... I'm impressed you'd go out of your way like this for a member of the crew." She comes up to the counter separating the kitchen from the rest of the galley, leaning down on it and looking Shepard's work over: there's a few bars of chocolate next to him, eggs, milk, sugar, various odds and ends. She even sees a pair of actual, fresh bananas sitting there next to a kitchen knife.

"You'd be surprised, honey," Shepard says and comes over to the counter, giving Ashley a kiss but keeping his hands well clear of her, coated as they are with flour. She smiles, "How come a hard-boiled spectre enjoys baking?

"Grew up on a freighter, remember?" Shepard says and turns back to the baking. "We had birthdays to celebrate too, and whenever it was my mother's, well..."

Ashley snickers, and slowly comes walking around the counter to join Shepard, "That duty fell on you?"

Shepard nods, "Yeah. I had always been her assistent when _she_ was going to bake for someone, that's how I learnt, and I guess it grew on me with time. It's a blessing to have a ship's chef as talented as ours, but I've kinda' missed this part of bein' a space jockey."

"I see," Ashley says in quite genuine wonderment, "Ehm, you want me to chop these?" she says and indicates the bananas. Shepard nods, "Yeah. Halv-inch thickness, as uniform as you can make'm." She can't help but chuckle as she grabs the little knife and gets to work, "You're a demanding boss no matter where you go."

"Well," Shepard says, "Now that I have your markswoman's eye to help me, might as well put it to use. The recipe is rather strict, but I never had that good an eye for measurements myself so I just kinda' winged it."

"Uhu. I never figured that my _markswoman's eye_ would one day come to be used for chopping fruit... What else do you need me to do?"

"That depends, Ashley, what do you prefer? This batter is going in a form in a sec', I'll need the chopped bananas and half the chocholate must be melted, we need to whip up cream and-"

"Alright alright," she says with a chuckle and a hand raised up defensively, "I'll stick to the simple stuff, I've never been much of a cook myself." She grabs the chocolate bars and starts breaking one of them apart in a small metal bowl. As she sets it on one of the induction stoves to her right she says "You know, honey, if you told me in advance you'd be sneaking up to use the kitchen I could've joined you earlier."

"Yeah, well..." Shepard says as he fiddles with the oven settings, "This whole idea was a bit of an impulse decision to be honest. But I knew your shift starts at five, I did time it a little and was hoping you'd join me." He smiles up at her, "I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but we don't get nearly enough time like this over to ourselves."

"No, we really don't," Ashley responds with a nod and a smile of her own, "But hey, lookat it from the bright side." She leans down and pecks Shepard, "It only becomes all the more special when we _do_ get to do something more casual, just the two of us."

"Yeah, maybe you're right," he says with a nod. "I've always been thinking about all the catch-up we've got to do when we've kicked Saren's ass, but maybe all we've gotta do is steal the ship's galley again for a day?"

Ashley chuckle at that and shakes her head, "Oh, I dunno if that's what I meant exactly... I've been looking forward to not being so exhausted every evening that I actually would rather sleep than sneak over to your quarters and fuck all night."

"Yeah," he replies, grinning, "I know exactly what you mean."

 **The End.**


End file.
